Painting Love

It gets a bit blurry whether I’m painting love or love painting! It’s a fact I’m painting war and battles big time. – And it seems love can be a battle.

This week I’m attending a painting class, and it’s really hard work, but I feel my love for painting are coming back big time. Can’t even ‘remember’ what made me slow down.

Oh, I DO remember!

Looking on the paintings I’d already made with critical eyes and finding out, it’s gonna take quite some work to understand – let alone work with – the ‘rules’ that makes an image work for the viewer, had me doubt myself for a while. But now I’m back, and I’m going to work with the tools available wherever I can find them. As I don’t have any timeline I have to follow … well, it comes when it comes!

6 days, 4 hours a day! Tomorrow is the last day for this class, but I’ve already put myself on the list for two classes in the fall – Tuesday evenings and Wednesday mornings for 7 weeks. That way I keep myself ‘in line’ and the classes are affordable for me, so it’s all good.

Class did start out with being awesome, but with a ‘small’ interruption from Daughter calling from the camp she was participating in, where she had broken down in tears and just wanted to go home. The leader of the camp and I both tried to convince her, that two days was hardly to be considered having tried, but she got nasty on everybody. So given her past history, I insisted on having her brought to the Psychiatric Emergency room before I could allow her to go home from the camp, which she did and they found her ‘sound’ enough to just go home and have a nice holiday. Of course continuing to seek help with the problems giving her trouble once in a while.

Technically she’s already moved from home to live with her boyfriend, but for 1,5 year I’m still responsible for her, but somehow I believe this is part of her claiming her independence, although it’s a bit hard to see her being so immature yet wanting so hard to be mature – let alone convince me she is! *sigh*

– and it’s hard work to have to know when to back out – and also realize my ‘job’ is basically over and I only have left to be her mum once in a while – preferably when the shit hits the fan! Is it very horrible, that I don’t want it to be that way? She ‘mentioned’ in her state of mind, that she regretted I was impossible to talk to and she regretted I was so lousy at being her friend! ‘Funny’ remark after I had been claimed by her to be the best mum ever and soooo good to talk to just two-three weeks before that! So it seems to be about time we both found out, what our future rolls should be to make us both content.

Probably wishful thinking, but it’s an attempt we have to make to avoid us becoming completely estranged! We’re both passionate, hard headed fools, so we could very easily spoil it for ourselfs, so it’s something to be really worried about … which I’ve decided not to be!

Not logical? Erm … could very well be … would be fitting. I’m sure Teen-years are not meant for much else but to have parents sigh in relief once those years are over! So I’m taking the illogical way here and try if it works for me – and for her! After all … for me, there’s me to consider, and for her, there her to consider and that distinction is rather hard to face, even though I knew it would come.

This time though – for the first time as a parent, I’ve been surprised by daughter having come further in her development than I’d expected and she really caught me off guard. Has to be a first for everything! She’s had a hard enough job finding that point, so it’s about time for her to do so. And it’s really peculiar to have to stand back, realizing it’s not about me anymore. I’m not the one asked to be the one to solve everything for her anymore, and although it’s also a little sad (at least in tiny fragments) it’s a great thing to see her try to fight her way out of mummy’s arms.

So all in all, I’m grateful it happened while I had a painting class where I could run to and hide if only just for some hours for some days. Now it’ll be interesting to see what will happen next. One thing is for sure – I’m neither the coolest mum in the world nor the worst! And she’s definitely a cool kid, although a pain in the ass sometimes.